Mer Barr
Lots of humor (I actually laughed out loud many times, which is rare for me) and I even understood some of the cultural references. A story with a strong female lead, which is nice; good action around the middle of the book all the way to the end. There were a couple times when the switch from one story line to the other didn't quite work in the audio but things sorted out pretty quickly.
The narrator has a very wide vocal range; getting really convincing deep male voices as well as a fairly high lead female.
My first Arturo Perez-Reverte. Slower pace than I normally choose to read but I hung in there as the mysteries moved along fast enough to keep my interest. It definitely sounded like Dan Brown reading at times and a heck of alot of Latin and books. Wondered how many were fact and how many fiction.
I'll pick up another from this author.
I enjoyed this book! Not too deep but enough detail to give you a sense of the man, his interests, and his impact on the world of his time and it's ongoing effect around me today.
I found a kindred spirit; I've always been driven by a need to see and experience new things and I love a wide variety of science topics, and nature. I can't say this might have been me because I never had the desire to actually dive into the proving of hypothesis and the research itself.
I'd heard some things that made me a bit hesitant to read this but overall I enjoyed the pace. On the recording I did find the narrator didn't pause long enough to give you an audible clue of time passing so I was often confused by some sentences until I figured out what happened. The ending came as a surprise and wrapped things up nicely, however I did have a sense of a cliff hanger. I do know there's a second book to this series and assume this is why.
I enjoyed the format of the book, dictation of a courtroom trial, and I enjoyed the banter between the two ‘lawyers'. The amount of detail presented by each of the authors is mind boggling; I clearly am not a ‘dyed in the wool' Star Wars fan! I was gratified to see I was not alone on my opinion of the prequels.
It takes a bit of effort to follow the conversations due to the choice of words but once you get the hang of it, the humor and imagery generated by those words is wonderful. Along the line of [b:Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead 18545 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Tom Stoppard https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1338735611l/18545.SY75.jpg 73811] and [book:La cage aux folles 52618839 for its uniqueness.
This is the second read of this book for me, both times I struggled to complete it. The first time I stalled in the several iterations of the alien civilization, the second time when the storyline side-tracked into a long, historical catch-up, and again into scientific explanations. Granted, the writing came back to the story line, both times, but ultimately these are characters and a story line that I can't get interested in.
Great armchair travel read as well as an insight to the amount of research that goes along with the diving and recovery.
Normally, when the story line veers from the action I'm thinking ‘get on with it!' but the author has the biographies and research sprinkled thru out and for short durations, so you're not too long away from the action which I enjoy.
Starts out rather slow but in hindsight the author is set up something to compare to later and giving background on the various players. I liked it well enough to move on to the next in the series and would consider a reread years later. When I've forgotten the details enough to enjoy again, or if I find out later, there are layers to the story that I didn't pick up on the first time around that would become apparent with another read.
NPR on a regular basis checks in with bookstore owners around the country to see what they would recommend for the upcoming reading season; this was one of those recommends.
This book reminds me of Tom Clancy's novels; tons of federal agency -names, job titles, acronyms- who all appear to be doing things that sound the same. It can get very confusing. I didn't keep track but would say roughly 2 dozen folks (or less) that float in and out of the same federal and commercial job posts; a very small world where everyone seems to know each other.
The jumping back and forth in time was a bit confusing but it would have to be done to cover all the events and career paths running in parallel, and follow the hand-offs to the next generations.
A very good read if you want to see the history of the cyber world, from the US government's perspective; it filled in alot of gaps in my knowledge about things I'd heard in the news over the years.
I've been looking for this book for decades! I remember reading it in somewhere around high school and it's stuck in my mind to reread it as it had some really unusual inventions in it. Now that I've found and reread it, it's still pretty amazing.
It's written for grade schoolers but references to Krakatoa (which I didn't know about then but do now), predictions on the new technologies (copyright 1940s), and the main character's desire to lead a simpler life (which I now want as well) really held my interest.
